Asheville.

Hope you haven't been holding your breath for this :) sorry it's taken me a week!

Posting pictures on blogger lately has been an issue for me for some reason. hopefully not today! Update: apparently Blogger still doesn't like my pictures! I will add them to this post once it starts working for me! Sorry!

We had such a great trip! Lots of fun with both families...so fun to see Hadleigh and Nathanael interact with my siblings and all their grandparents!

Highlights from our trip:

-The Butterfly exhibit at The Nature Center -- it was so much fun to see so many butterflies, hold them, and see them in all the phases of their life in person!

-The Health Adventure's exhibit using golf balls for various "scientific" discoveries. But to Hadleigh (and us) it was all about the pink ball and the fun tracks they got to travel down!

-Going to the park! Hadleigh loves to slide, swing, run, jump from things (into your arms), slide, climb, cross bridges, ride see-saws,and did I mention slide?

-Going out to lunch...it is always a treat to get to have lunch with my mom (and sister and dad!)...we went to two of my favorite tea rooms {Chelsea's and Kathleen's} and they did not disappoint.

-Getting to see lots of friends and their children!

-Getting to go to a great scrapbook store while mom played with the kids in the car :) On top of that...there was a huge thunderstorm while I was in the store...huge! Shopping while you can hear the thunder is actually a lot of fun!

-Lots and lots of rainy mornings and/or afternoons! I love that storms blow into and out of the mountains so quickly...a beautiful clear day and a rainy day wrapped into one! Perfect!

-Hadleigh spent lots of time cooking with both Mimi and Kammy! Dinners, cookies, more cookies! She had a blast in the kitchen!

-Getting to be with my brothers and sister. We're not often all together at the same time...so it was so special to get to have a week with them at home too!

-I realized that I actually LIKE being outside ... as long as the weather is to my liking! We spent time of some sort every day outside ... in the garden, in the front yard, on walks, on the front yard swing, on the hammock, at the pool ... and it was SO enjoyable!

-Getting to watch Hadleigh's reaction to her first trip (since she was an infant) to a "big pool"! She loved splashing in the little pool at the club ... as long as she was on the steps...she had a blast...swallowed a little bit of water, which surprised her, but really enjoyed herself. She wanted to go down the slide in the "big pool" but we told her next time! And she just LOVED seeing the big kids "splash" from the diving board! Nathanael loved the water too...it will be fun to see them next year in it! (Sadly, all our pool pictures were mysteriously erased from the memory card. So disappointing!)

-Getting to go shopping! I found a round rug for Hadleigh's room (it will be here next week!)and fun pajamas at Porter & Prince, lots of books from B&N for Hadleigh and Nathanael, a magnetic paper doll kit for the planeride home, and a great Target find: a fun Dora sprinkler/hopscotch for outside...only $6! It's so much more fun to go shopping with someone you love!

-Our second weekend in Asheville was Asheville's annual Bele Chere weekend. It's a big street fair- lots of vendors, lots of concerts, tons of people! I haven't been in years and wasn't sure what to expect going with the kiddos but we went with Brent's parents and had an absolutely fabulous time! They have a huge kid-friendly zone with tons of amusement park rides (carousel, ferris wheel, mini-train, spinning swings, etc.) as well as a bunch of bouncy-castle type "rides". Hadleigh loves bouncing in the regular bouncy castle and then also on the bouncy obstacle course. She amazed us by being pretty fearless...she climbed up the huge wall (and then slid back down next to the steps) and then climbed "up" the other side where the slide was, and then slid all the way down. Again and again and again. She did not want to leave!

The only thing sad about our trip was not having Brent with us!

As always, we love Asheville and can't wait until Christmastime for our next visit!